Incoming calls with a caller ID found to exactly match a number on the Blacklist will be rejected with an appropriate announcement before automatically terminating the call. The end user can enter up to a maximum of 12 numbers onto the Blacklist per Call Group instance.

Incoming calls where the caller ID is anonymous or withheld can also be set to reject to an appropriate announcement before being terminated.

The announcements are system wide and cannot be customised on a per Company or Call Group basis.

Nuisance Call Management will be available to a Company as part of the Group Advanced Settings subscription and the cost is included within the standard monthly rental. Each Hunt Group, Auto Attendant, Call Queue or Call Centre will need a Group Advanced Settings license if Nuisance Call Management (NCM) is required.

You can also check if there are any spare Group Advanced Settings licenses to assign via the Administration>Subscription Centre menu on the Horizon Portal.

To configure NCM, select the Call Group type from the drop-down menu on the Horizon Portal and choose the specific category the Call Group number is configured as.

To set up the NCM option for a Call Group find the particular group you wish to modify and click edit.

The NCM feature can be found under the Advanced Settings tab for all four Call Group types.

If not already, enable the Group Advanced Settings by toggling the button to on and the relevant options will appear for the Call Group. Click on the Nuisance Call Management edit button for the configuration panel.

You can add specific numbers to the Blacklist of numbers by typing them freehand into the highlighted panel and clicking the button, there is also the option to add numbers from the Company Directory icon. To delete a number from the Blacklist click the icon.

To enable or disable the NCM feature you now just need to toggle the appropriate button between on and off. The options are:

Will only reject those incoming calls where the callers ID exactly matches a number in the Blacklist.

Will reject those incoming calls where the callers ID exactly matches a number in the Blacklist or the callers ID is anonymous or withheld.

Will only reject those incoming calls where the callers ID is anonymous or withheld.

Update and refresh of the desktop soft client – July 27th

On the night of the 26th July from 10pm, we will have completed the upgrade and refresh of the current Desktop soft client from the Release 18 to Release 21 revision of the software.

A full revised user guide is available on the Gamma website.

How does a user update their PC client?

After the evening of the update a user signing on any outdated version of the desktop client will see the prompt to the right.

Selecting ‘Yes’ will start the upgrade process.

Selecting ‘No’ will log them into the old version. A user will see this message every time they log on until they complete the upgrade.

Once ‘Yes’ is selected, the installer will then ask the user to confirm closing down the client and allow the new version to be downloaded.

The installer programme will then open the link to the new version in the user’s browser and download the new client. The user will then need to launch the new setup file themselves and follow the installation steps.

From there, it behaves like a new install, bar a prompt to ask you to confirm that the old version will be uninstalled.

Changes to Highlight

Introduction of visual voicemail

Visual voicemail will now be enabled on the new release of the client. This allows users to visually manage their voicemails rather than dialling into the voice portal.

This can be found on the communication history section. Within this section there will now be a voicemail tab.

From this tab, you can view all the current voicemails in your mailbox where you will be able to play, call back or delete voicemails.

Listening to voicemail on the client uses data, instead of calling into the voice portal, so internet access would be required to retrieve and play back the voicemail.

New call settings and preferences view

Call settings and preferences have now been integrated into the main window of the client. Previously this was managed on a separate menu:

Within the new desktop client these settings can be updated on the newly located preferences tab via the drop-down menu:

If the user is associated to a Call Queue then Queues have also been moved from a separate window to the new Preferences tab and can now be found under a visible ‘Services’ option.

Additional call settings and preferences

Along with the new look to the call settings and preferences there are now a few more call settings that can be controlled from soft client, these are ‘anonymous call rejection’ and ‘unanswered call forward’.

New notification settings

In the new client, a user can enable or disable the following notifications at the bottom of the General tab under Preferences.

Extension settings

This enables enhanced connectivity between a 3rd party extension, for example a headset, and can facilitate call answering and volume control directly via the headset. These extensions sit outside the scope of support and therefore if a 3rd party extension does not work Gamma cannot guarantee to resolve the issue.

You can also choose default behaviour to always reject or accept requests from 3rd party applications and allow or reject individual 3rd party applications.

The default position of the Extension Settings options will be always be disabled.

Highlight to call

Highlight to call feature has now been added. This allows you to highlight a number on any of your applications and press a hot key to call the number.

It is advised that you select a hot key combination that is not already being used by another application.

Display phone number in search results

Previously search results did not display the number, and showed the name only. Now, search results display both the name and number.

Resolution of known behaviours

Auto-answer support for SIP calls

Currently if the desktop soft client is the primary device and customer uses the Receptionist or Integrator clients to generate a call they must manually answer the first leg of the call on the desktop client before the B party is called.

The new version of the client supports auto-answer so this is no longer the case, and providing the soft client is the primary device, i.e. you do not have a fixed device, making a call from a click to dial application will automatically make the call from your client.

Please note that this only applies if you have the desktop soft client only. If you have a fixed device the call will always be made from the fixed device.

On the current version of the desktop client if you hold a call on the soft client and then try to un-hold the call on the Receptionist client this will fail with an error message. Similarly, if you hold a call on the Receptionist client, the soft client will not update.

On the new version, this is now resolved and all interactions are fluid on each client.

Horizon Desktop Soft Client for the Mac PC

We are pleased to announce that the desktop soft client now has a Mac version as well.

The Mac soft client can be assigned to the user via the User Management > Edit User > Phone and clicking on the Manage Soft Client button.

Check the Desktop Client box and select the Mac Client from the dropdown box and choose the codec as normal. Then click save at the bottom of the page.

After a short while the end user will receive an automatic email, from Horizon, which will advise them that soft client has been enabled, provide the portal URL from where the client can be downloaded along with their username. A separate email will be sent containing their soft client password.

Once they have logged onto the Horizon Portal the Homepage will contain the link to download the soft client.

Horizon Soft Client for Mac known Behaviours

On some Mac devices, a short audio delay of up to 1 second may be presented when a call is answered. This seems to be exacerbated with some USB audio devices.

Some iMac users have had the experience that even though the Mute button is activated, the call is not actually muted. There is no workaround for this.

For OS X, if a user has configured the client to use a Universal Serial Bus (USB) audio device and the user unplugs that device, then the Mac soft client does not automatically detect that the device was removed. Consequently, playing audio (ring signal, call audio, or notifications for incoming messages) fails until the audio device has been reconfigured in Preferences.

On MacBook laptops, the Mac soft client only uses the right speaker for audio playback to reduce the potential echo issues. This is due to the built-in microphones residing next to the left speaker.

When headphones are disconnected from the MacBook Pro, a crackling sound is sometimes heard when the “new message” tone is played (BTUC-6310). There is no workaround for this.

If your internet service provider does not have SIP ALG disabled, the soft client will keep on attempting to connect for calls and the client will appear to jitter constantly. There is no workaround save to disable SIP ALG.

Some functions like sign-out and quit are only available in the OSX system menu. This should be familiar to Mac users.

A full Mac soft client user guide is available on the Gamma website.

Horizon Integrator version 2.4 – Final Call

We have been communicating the end of life of the Horizon integrator version 2.4 since February and the withdrawal will happen on the evening of 31st July 2017. After this date, any Horizon Integrator 2.4 user attempting to sign on will be refused connection. The only option for the user will be to upgrade to the latest version in order to continue using the services and features that the Integrator provides.